First of all, happy turkey-day ervrybody! A time to meet with family, bond together over a mutual distaste of the Dallas Cowboys, wrinkle our noses at how our one uncle we never see outside of the holiday season reeks of liquor, and breathe in the strong, almost living vapors emanating from all that delicious food cooking in the kitchen. I loves it so much, I’ll be spending mine keeping a respectful yet manageable distance from everyone, quietly eyeing relatives while wondering if it’s okay to think that my young twenty-four year old aunt is hot, even though we're related, though technically not by blood.

Instead of reviewing something more modern today, I thought I’d review a game that somewhat honors the Thanksgiving spirit, because at least to my knowledge, there are no Thanksgiving-related games out there.

The Harvest Moon series has been around for a while, earning a pretty nice reputation during the N64/PSone era. While Nintendo got the creatively named Harvest Moon 64, PSone owners were treated to Harvest Moon: Back to Nature from Natsume, released exclusively for the PlayStation back in 2000.

If you’ve never played a Harvest Moon game before, I wouldn’t be surprised. Their slow-paced game mechanics and highly repetitive nature aren’t for everyone. In the bluntest of comparisons, think Sims meets Farmville, and to be honest, as a Harvest Moon fan, that comparison makes me cringe. It’s its own beast, in its own right. The formula: You control a character who has inherited his grandfather’s old farm where he spent his summer vacation as a child. You’re told that the farm is a wreck, and indeed, the farm has a bunch of weeds and rocks and sticks littered throughout the field, and you have literally no animals whatsoever. You’re then told that you have a generous timeframe of three years to get the farm in order and turn it into something you can be proud of. From there on out, you’re left to your own devices for the rest of the game.

"I&#Array;m turning this place into a Wal-Mart."

Farm work consists mainly of two things: Planting, growing, and harvesting crops, and raising livestock like cows and chickens. But to do those things, you need money, and for that, you’ll have to do some other crap too. Foraging and mining are easy, but time and energy consuming. Once you have some cash, you need to get some seeds, at least one live animal, and some seed and fodder. From there, you’ll have to start investing in upgrades to your house and tools, and then once you’ve done all that, you might start turning a profit. But you’ll still have to tend the fields and care for your animals, and the more that you get, the more tedious it becomes. But before you can start anything, may I remind you that your field has gone to crap and needs work, like breaking rocks, pulling weeds, and chopping lumber. See? Monotonous.

A game about hard work and labor? What&#Array;s next, a game about pencil-pushing?

But that’s only half the game. The other half involves your down time, mostly spent in the village, Mineral Town. Mineral Town is a small but quaint little village with a few little shops and houses scattered throughout. There’s the inn, where you can grab a bite to eat, the supermarket, where you can purchase ingredients for food and some seeds for planting, and the smith, where you can upgrade tools, albeit at a high price and the proper materials. But unfortunately, most of the NPC’s don’t have that much to say. Occasionally, you’ll be treated to a quick in-game cinematic that explores the characters relationships with their fellow villagers, but they’re rare. So usually, you can pretty much avoid them, which, again, is unfortunate because some of the characters seem to have some genuinely interesting backgrounds.

Most of your in-game social interactions will come with the five lucky bachelorettes in the town. In order to get with them though, you’ll have to try your hand at pitching some woo, winning the girls over with constant gift-giving and mindless chit-chatting. Each girl has her own likes/dislikes, and times that they’re free to talk, which can be bothersome at times. Their affection for you is indicated by a small heart in the text box, getting larger every so often depending on how much work you’ve put in. Because girls love repetition.

Once they’re properly infatuated with you, you can wed them, move in together, and have a useless kid. The best part about this game over all other Harvest Moon games are the festivals. The year is divided into four seasons, all with their own holidays, most of which that you can participate in. Some are silly, but a nice change of pace, like the tomato festival where you and a team of two others throw tomatoes at other villages, animal festivals, where you enter your animal to see if you’ve raised the best of the best, and the gambling festivals, my personal favorites, where you bet against the odds to win big prizes. I seriously do not understand why the series moved away from this type of system, as the holidays become the only way to break up the monotony after your first year in town, unless you count cooking, which can be fun if you don’t mind a lot of experimenting and failing.

In the presentation department, Back to Nature leaves a lot to be desired. Music is repetitive to the point where I’m physically glad when dusk rolls in and the music stops. Graphics are pretty lame for a game that came in during the PSone’s final days. Textures are muddy and character sprites look like those old little-people toys with no interesting features. The only other complaint I have is back in gameplay. Listen, I have no problem with monotony, or otherwise I wouldn’t touch this game. But that goddamn barn is too goddamn small. Once you fill that sucker with ten cows and ten sheep, tending to them becomes impossible. Animals will get all cluttered together in a corner, forcing you to try and move them yourself, and once they’re in the corner, it’s nigh impossible. The problem is that they constantly go through each other, like, physically. It’s highly annoying because you can’t just leave them unattended, or else they get all pissy and they’ll refuse to give you produce. Bastard cows…

"@#$%!"

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is a tough game to review because while its intended audience will adore it, everyone else will wave it off as casually as a horse swats off flies. (Farm reference? Got it.) Patience is the key to enjoying a game like this. Which brings me to the real issue. Is this the best HM game to date? Flat answer is no, but it’s up there, at least from what I’ve seen. Top three at least, with 64 and Wonderful Life. Anyhow, the game costs $5 on PSN, or you can try HM64, through the Wii Virtual Console (Never played it myself, but from what I can tell, it’s close enough to BtN). Adversely, you can always pick up a copy of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature: Boy & Girl for the PSP, for quite cheap. It’s the same game, but with the added bonus of being in the palm of your hands, also having the alternate version where you can play as a girl instead, but this version is, take it from me, really laggy. If you like games like Animal Crossing or Sims or something slow-paced like that, you may really enjoy this series, so I’d really recommend this game.

Score: 8.0/10

It looks as if this is gonna be the average review length for me guys. Any comments, complaints, compliments, or any general feedback should go in the comments below and will be greatly appreciated. Each commenter will receive one hypothetical hug.